This study provides information on the current practice of grading, recording, and averaging. Five hundred forty-four institutions of higher education returned a survey form, a 73 percent return. Two- and four-year institutions, public and private, in all states were included in the survey. Conclusions suggest: (1) Institutions in higher education are experimenting with a wide variety of practices, and these experiments are causing much distress to some registrars, professors, and deans. (2) There are as many different types of grading systems as there are institutions. Some institutions reported different policies within that institution. (3) Most of the responding institutions use one or more types of nontraditional grades, but few use them exclusively. The prevalent practice reported by most institutions is to use the nontraditional grades in courses outside the major and to allow student option. (4) There is a trend toward being less punitive with grades in institutions of higher education. (5) As competency-based education becomes more widespread in higher education, it appears that additional modifications and changes in grading, recording, and averaging practices will come into being and that the traditional transcript/GPA approach will lose more of its historical meaning. (MJM)